youthlarge's bibimbop

Friday, January 27, 2006

things you're not quite sure how to tell a stranger #1

this morning during a terrible morning commute (where I waited 20 minutes on a freezing F platform outside for a train only to have it be completely full and after another 10 minutes, i realized another train was not ever going to come and so i left the station and walked to the R) i noticed a long white strip on a guy's pair of jeans. he was walking up the stairs in front of me and as i closed in on the gap between us, i realized that the patch on the back of his left leg was one of those stickers that lists the waist and length of your jeans. 34 36 was neatly printed in two columns over and over. i couldn't imagine this was left there on purpose. i mean, this guy looked rather hipstery - the detailing on the back pocket was nothing i had ever seen, leaving me thinking it was yet another new, boutiquey high-end jeans company. for the next 30 seconds, i hemmed and hawed as to whether or not i should tell him. i know if it were me, i would be thankful for the notice, but i couldn't tell with this guy. would be he thankful, or would embarassment overhwhelm him and make him turn mean? in the end i didn't tell him and no, i don't feel guilty about it either.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

double double your refreshment

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

the question was: "how many of us were popular in high school?"

Someone posed the question on a music mailing list I'm on, asking if we played sports and what sort of music we listened to. This is what I wrote. I have since added footnotes.

--I played softball my freshman and sophomore years. I did track for a bit in my senior year because I really liked the sweatpants. But I don't think I ever competed and I probably quit after a couple weeks. I think they had me throwthe shotput.(1) I love sports but I have never been anywhere near athletic.

I did compete at the Bergen County Academic Decathalon for two years.(2) I was an extracirricular activities nerd. I was in the marching band for a couple years because I played the sax, but band geeks were indeed the most annoying (and horny) subculture at school.(3)

I put on a Beat Happening cd once during a theater rehearsal for Fiddler on the Roof or maybe it was West Side Story (I did sound and lights) and got yelled at.(4)

I had a fanzine, but it was about R.E.M. so that wasn't very cool. I remember ordering lots of stuff from Burning Airlines mailorder. And Taang and Sub Pop - because I dabbled in Grunge a bit.

I went to the Palladium(7) and shot pool with the Asian Mafia, went to in-stores at Tower Records with the older Morissey worshipping crowd, smoked weed with the burnouts behind the school, and went to movies, into "the city" and drank wine coolers and Zima with the socially active nerds.(8)--(1) It was actually the discus. I think I threw it like 3 feet. (2) I was on the "C" team. There were three levels, A, B and C, depending on your GPA. I won a gold medal for my speech about gun control and a silver medal for my essay, the topic of which I can't remember. The medals are currently with James and Linda. (3) This one girl in my grade Heather was dating a senior, PJ. They were both trombonists. There was some story about her biting down on PJ's hiddley-ho during oral pleasuring. Oh and all the older band geek males would hook up with younger bank geek females. It was like an unsaid rule you couldn't hook up with someone in your own grade. (4) It was a dumbass named Paul who yelled at me and then he put Depeche Mode on the stereo instead. (5) I think at one point during 1992, circa Automatic for the People, I wrote Michael Stipe a letter every day for a month. At least that's how I remember it. I probably really only wrote 3 or 4. (6) I crowd surfed at a Shonen Knife show at Irving Plaza. Ha ha.(7) Now an NYU dorm by the same name!(8) This paragraph makes it sound like I had a social life. Don't get me wrong, I most certainly did not. I was just trying to make the point that I didn't have any close friends and floated from group to group. I also did not drink very much.

Monday, January 23, 2006

robert wagner has nothing to do with this post

this morning i had a cup of cereal. the cleanliness of the bowls in the office is suspect, so i used a coffee cup that seemed to be made out of packing peanut material. it was the first time i've had cold cereal for breakfast in at least 5 years, maybe even more. during college i went on a brief kellogg's smart start kick, but i mostly liked eating it out of the box dry. usually what happens is that about halfway through a box, i get bored of the morning repitition.

however i was grocery shopping yesterday afternoon and decided to buy a box of kashi heart to heart. i might have been influenced by the recent new york times article about alternative cereals. i also decided i need to be healthier and getting donuts and brioches from balthazar bakery doesn't help my arteries or my wallet.

the key for me is the proper milk-to-cereal ratio. i think i might be mildly lactose intolerant. sometimes eating dairy products upsets my stomach or makes me very phlegmy. in fact i am kind of phlegmy now. i used a tiny bit of 1% milk - just enough to coat the cereal but not make it a soggy mess. the cereal retained its shape (circles and hearts) and the centers remained somewhat crunchy. we'll see how the week progresses.